Verizon Wireless and Cellcrypt Team-up to Deliver Encrypted Calls

Verizon Wireless, the largest carrier in the U.S., has signed an agreement with Cellcrypt, a provider of mobile encryption software, to market its offerings to the government. At present, the co-branded service is undergoing testing; it will be widely available this fall.

In a nutshell, the agreement between Verizon Wireless and Cellcrypt is designed to push Verizon further into the government’s pockets, by offering a service that they previously couldn’t – readily available encryption on any of their offered devices. As it stands, Verizon Wireless is the government’s largest mobile vendor, so the agreement with Cellcrypt only sweetens the pot.

The newly inked deal will allow the carrier to offer Cellcrypt's mobile voice-encryption solution to military, intelligence and civilian agencies.

"As a matter of national security, military and government personnel must be able to communicate sensitive information over their mobile phones, and it is imperative that these conversations be protected from interception," said Kathleen Peters, Cellcrypt's general manager of the Americas and vice president of business development.

When launched officially this fall, the Verizon-Cellcrypt service will be supported on smartphones and tablets running the Android, BlackBerry, or iOS mobile platforms. The downloadable software application developed by Cellcrypt supports federal information processing standard 140-2, will work across GSM and CDMA (2G, 3G, 4G), Wi-Fi and satellite networks.

Details on the co-branded trial were not available. However, it is expected to progress smoothly as Cellcrypt is already NIST certified.

Steve Ragan is a security reporter and contributor for SecurityWeek. Prior to joining the journalism world in 2005, he spent 15 years as a freelance IT contractor focused on endpoint security and security training.